Jenny Engström: Strengthened ambassadorship with media coverage of the non-profit organization
Engaging members and enthusiasts is something Jenny Engström, press officer at the Swedish Tourist Association (Svenska Turistföreningen), STF, has a lot of experience with. With the help of the association's intranet, she can make the commitment of employees, volunteers, and hosts visible and help create a sense of pride and community.
"Everything we work for, we do to increase the opportunities for tourism in Sweden in a way that does not burden the Earth"
Jenny Engström has worked for the Swedish Tourist Association for over fifteen years. Since she is not so fond of professional titles, she says instead that her work is about ensuring that the association is both seen and heard. The business card says press officer, but it's more relaxed when we don't acknowledge it.
She tells with great commitment about the adventurous Uppsala students who in 1885 founded the Swedish Tourist Association with a dream of discovering the Swedish mountains together.
The association began to mark out hiking trails and shortly afterwards also ensured that small mountain huts were set up along the trails. The association grew and in 1932, about 50 years after the association was founded, a motion was submitted to the board that exploration should not be limited to the mountains, but that the whole of Sweden should be the catchment area for the association's work. It was not more than a year before the association's first accommodation outside the mountain trails was opened, in Gränna in the south of Sweden. With that, the word 'vandrarhem' (swedish for 'hostel') was also coined and from then on STF became something that Jenny describes as a hostel movement.
From north to south, from hostels to farm hotels
The accommodation that can be booked via svenskaturistforeningen.se has expanded over time and now includes more forms of accommodation than just hostels. Do you want to stay comfortably in a farm hotel or perhaps see what it's like to spend the night in a lighthouse? Almost 250 accommodations are scattered throughout the country, from the southernmost Smygehuk all the way up to Abisko in the north. Around 50 of the accommodations are run in-house and the rest by affiliated hosts who are often self-employed.
- Everything we work for, we do to increase the opportunities for tourism in Sweden in a way that does not burden the Earth, says Jenny.
Working towards genuine ambassadorship
The soul of STF's way of working and communicating can in many ways be described as the personal in face-to-face meetings. With everything from the importance of value for the reader when it comes to social media to giving journalists stories they can make their own. Clearly, time is of the essence and not something to be taken for granted or wasted.
In addition to physical meetings, the intranet is an important part of the work of bringing the association together and creating a sense of belonging. Jenny says that independent housing hosts, or dedicated enthusiasts as they are called, can connect with others via the intranet and share their everyday lives, which provides an opportunity to encourage and inspire each other. Ambassadorship is important and STF seems to understand the importance of working to make their colleagues, internal and external, feel seen and heard.
With the help of All Ears, anyone with access to the intranet can see when and how the association has been mentioned. The internal social media feed shares photos and posts from the local associations and individual hosts. Jenny points to the cohesion and sense of belonging to something bigger as keys to strengthening ambassadorship.
- It becomes a kind of pride, Jenny says, and talks about the importance of being able to see yourself as part of something bigger.
Monthly report with copy and paste
Monthly reporting is not high on the list of things that make Jenny jump up and down, but it is an important part of understanding what is being said internally. The summary emails that are sent from All Ears help a lot. A quick 'copy and paste' and a whole monthly report has almost written itself.
- It's linked and ready. If the board wants to read more, they can simply click on the All Ears link to access everything, Jenny explains.
Although All Ears may seem like just a small piece of the puzzle in the work of the Swedish Tourist Association, Jenny has made one thing clear: all pieces are needed, big and small
